I spent the first years 19 years of my life residing in the Samuel Gompers Housing Projects in East St. Louis. During my earlier childhood years, I remember my neighborhood being a place where parents and elders looked out for the safety and nurturing of all children in the community.
Even though I lived in the projects, adults in my community instilled the importance of taking pride in the place we called home. On Saturdays during the summer, the adults organized neighborhood cleanup activities and everyone in the neighborhood was involved with picking up trash, planting flowers and pulling up weeds.
However, in the late 1980s to early ‘90s, my neighborhood took a drastic turn for the worse. It became a volatile and scary place to live. Parents didn’t allow their children to play outside after a certain time because of neighborhood feuds and shootings. I was being raised in a low-income, highly traumatized community, and my future seemed bleak.
My childhood friends and I started to normalize violence, seeing people being arrested, witnessing the effect of the drugs, school suspensions, expulsions and death. I remember praying on several occasions asking God to allow me to see my 18th birthday.
When I was 16 years old, my childhood friend was murdered by three teenage boys. I experienced a great deal of pain, depression, trauma, anger and frustration. Sadly, some of those experiences still haunt me to this day. I have attended more funerals of my peers than high school graduations.
Thankfully, I had a good support system of family members, teachers and other caring adults who took time to give me nurturing, support and guidance. Despite the hardships, I was first in my family to attend college. I graduated from Saint Louis University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Criminal Justice and a Minor in Education. Later, I attended Lindenwood University and received a Master of Science degree in Human Resources Management.
So many of our children, youth and young adults need the same support I received. As a community of adults, we have to be more intentional about creating systems that are supportive of producing leaders. Our young people have endured so much pain and punishment just by entering a world that makes them feel unwelcomed and underserving of love. Realistically, how do we expect our children to succeed and thrive when they experience hopelessness, devastation and a lack of community investment?
Black communities are still impacted by government-imposed redlining and harmful exclusionary policies and practices. In order for black communities to recover, investments in better schools, businesses, housing and economic development are essential.
We should offer counseling and trauma-based services to promote mental health support for children and families within schools, public housing communities, juvenile detention facilities, jails, prisons and faith communities. During the time of my childhood friend’s death, my peers and I did not have access to therapy and counseling services to help us process our grief and other emotions we endured.
We should embed in our schools’ policies, practices, procedures and investments that are responsive to racial and ethnic disparity data, culturally responsive pedagogy, student accommodations (504 plans/IEPs), fostering stronger family engagement partnerships and safety.
We should continuously analyze juvenile decision point data findings to improve community infrastructure with better housing, transportation, employment development, education to divert individuals from resorting to illegal activities. We should place more attention on early intervention, prevention alternatives and community collaboration.
In an effort to break generational cycles, black youth need early exposure and increased access to college, vocational education, employment and career shadowing opportunities to increase their earned income potential.
I am committed to creating better systems for youth across the St. Louis region. I honor my friend’s legacy by transferring my pain into power to benefit other kids in need. Let’s join forces!
Tamara Vaughn-Walker is the Juvenile Justice Council coordinator with the St. Clair County State’s Attorney’s Office and is a Community Advisory Board member with the Deaconess Foundation.
